Conference turris::cooks

    I've been making chocolate chip cookies for quite a few years and
    I noticed that if you do not use softened butter ( take it directly
    from the refrigerator ) that the batter will be firm enough to make
    the type of cookies you're looking for.  Also, when placing them
    on the cookie sheet make hight piles of batter, that way when they
    spread they will not spread too wide and still remain high.
    
    Moe

    
    
    Other hints:
    
    Before starting, put the chips and the cookie pans in the refrigerator.
    This prevents chips from melting to nothing and cool pans prevents
    batter from spreading.
    
    After mixing, put the batter into fridge for 1/2 - 1 hr.
    
    Also, the type of brown sugar (light or dark) effects the color
    (appearance) of the cookie.
      
    Last, I preheat oven for only 5 minutes and then bake for 9 minutes
    (but this will depend on your own oven)
    
    

    Re .1, .2:
    
    I'm not sure I was clear; I want the batter to spread.  I can make
    "cookie lumps" very easily; it's one of my great skills.  Actually,
    I've just learned how to alter the recipe to make excellent "normal"
    chocolate-chip cookies:  Golden-brown, crispy but not hard, and just a
    bit higher than the chips themselves.
    
    Now I'm looking to have the cookies be lighter than golden-brown, just
    barely browned at all, and the batter should spread so that the cookie
    is low and the chocolate chips are visible as lumps in the cookie, but
    it should remain soft.  I can probably get the color and softness by
    reducing the cooking time or changing the temperature, but I don't know
    how to get the batter to spread.
    
    
    				-- edp 

    Reduce the amount of flour.
    

    
    Immediately after removing from oven, hold cookie sheet 10-12 inches
    above countertop........and DROP it!!! Don't slam it, just drop it
    flat.
    
    Works every time!!

    Re .4:
    
    > Reduce the amount of flour. 
    
    That did it, thanks.  And it doesn't take much; reducing the flour by a
    sixth completely flattens the cookies. 
    
    
    				-- edp

    
    You can also do it by packing the brown sugar harder...that I learned
    by mistake...
    
    

	We cook our chocolate chip cookies on our pizza stone.  It gives
    a wonderful result -- the cookies come out nice and soft and a little
    chewy.... yum!

    I just follow the recipe on the back of the Hershey chocolate chip
    bag for Toll House cookies.  They always come out perfect.  I bake
    them for 8 minutes and they are nice and chewy.  I sometimes put
    the batter in a 9x13x2 pan and make squares instead.  These I bake
    for about 20-25 minutes. Either way they're great right out of the
    oven with a cold glass of milk!
    

    Actually, the Toll House cookie recipe is on the Nestle
    chocolate chips bag, not Hershey.  Hersey may have a cookie
    recipe on their bag, but they're not original "Toll House".
    
    FYI
    Pam

    Re .9, .10:
    
    I had always used the recipe on the bag, but the cookies often came out
    in mounds and always became hard little cakes if not eaten while warm.
    Reducing the butter by a quarter cured this perfectly.
    
    By the way, the original Toll House burned down approximately five
    years ago. 
    
    
    				-- edp

    
    This same question was asked in the December 88, Country Living
    Magazine "Dear Jane Dough":
    
    A.  Cookie crunch is based on good old-fashioned chemistry, not
    on secret ingredients.  Cookies made with butter are going to be
    crispy; vegetable shortening will make a softer, more shortbreaklike
    cookie.  ....... Gwen Steeger, in The Search for the Perfect Chocolate
    Chip Cookie (Storey Publications; $7.95), suggests that baking in
    a 400-degree oven for about 8 minutes will yield softer, chewier
    cookie; a 300 or 325-degree oven for 15 minutes will net harder
    ones.
    

    re 12.   I don't agree with Country Living Mag....I have always
    baked cookies with Butter and they Always come out chewy.....
    
    I haven't looked at all the recipes submitted but the best that
    I have found is the famous "mrs fields supposed recipe"......if
    it is not here, I can bring it in....
    
    /the cookie monster
    

    
    re..13
    
    I also disagree with Country Living MAg...I only use butter when
    I am making Christmas cookies or for a real special occasion, and
    I always make my choc chip cookies crisp. I make adjustments with
    the flour.

    Re .12
    
    What is vegetable shortening?  Is it another one of those butter
    substitutes?
    
    	-Nancy

    
    Crisco would be a vegetable shortening, any shortening with out
    animal fat, made with corn oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil etc.

>    Crisco would be a vegetable shortening, any shortening with out
>    animal fat, made with corn oil, cottonseed oil, palm oil etc.

although bad for your heart (it's coconut and palm and palm kernel oil
that solidifies best), the butter-flavored crisco really is nice to
bake cookies with....great sugar cookies!  I use half that and half
real butter for my chocolate chippers.

    I have a question (moderator - feel free to move this to an appropriate
    note if it shouldn't go here):
    
    I'd like to make a LARGE chocolate chip cooke (like you see in the
    Cookies Cookin' places. Large enough for me to write a msg on.
    
    My question is: should I alter the recipe at all and what about baking? 
    
    I thought I'd use my original recipe, spread the dough out on a cookie
    sheet, and use a lower temp and just keep checking the cookie for
    doneness. I just don't want it to get hard and burned on the edges and
    mushy in the middle.
    
    Any suggestions?
    
    thanks,
    beth

	There is a book out called "MONSTER COOKIES" and it tell you how
to make such a cookie. I've never tried it but I have them all over
the place.


						Robert

    Does anyone have the Martha Stewart receipe for
    
    BROWN SUGAR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
    
    
    that she claims is her favorite receipe ??
    
    thanks

    You know, in looking at those cookies this morning, they look
    just like my regular old (big) Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies that
    have just been a tad too overdone.
                        
    Maybe she just didn't want to use the registered trademark name of
    Tollhouse??          
    
    Sue